Today, Eduard Dolinsky, the 49-year-old director of the Ukranian Jewish Committee, is immersed in a campaign against the valorization of the SS as anti-Communist heroes.
Once he saw young people in nazi-uniform, walking down Lviv’s streets, he got mad. His whole family survived the horrors of the World War II.
“When I was a kid someone told me that I’m a Yid,” recalled Dolinsky in a recent interview with the Forward. “I came home and asked my mom what it meant. She told me that we are Jews and we are different, don’t pay attention. For a long time afterwards I was confused and ashamed that I’m different and not like other kids.”
Ukrainian Jews are about 0.1% of the country’s 44 million people.